Walking down the pedestrian path of the Wescom Credit Union, I witnessed three gardeners, one wielding a hose directly into the hole where a palm tree grew.

Hmm, I thought. That is an effective way to water. No broadcasting of water hither and yon. No overwatering on the sidewalks. No puddles. Instead, laser-like water bursts into the roots of a tree that was brown.

Five minutes later, my eyes followed a different kind of water use.

A brown hose from a water line at the Pasadena Convention Center was connected to a hose bib and stretched 50 feet across the public area. There, in plain view, in front of the magnificent building, a worker blew the sidewalks, steps and concrete landing with a jet spray of water. A powerful volume of water — now becoming a scarce commodity in sunnier, warmer and drier California — hit the concrete like bullets from a machine gun.

Two diverse views, barely a football field apart, of the drought in California.

How are we going to get to 25 percent if a guy is using a power spray on concrete steps? I didn’t see any blood stains that needed cleaning, but I didn’t ask. Instead of outrage, I felt shame. I live here and this is how my water is being used?

The new water conservation tiers were released last week. Cities already conserving a lot are only asked to save 10 percent more. Most cities in the middle, like Pasadena, must sacrifice 25 percent more. And some big users, such as Arcadia, Beverly Hills, Glendora, La Habra, Redlands, Sierra Madre and South Pasadena, are being asked to cut back 35 percent, according to preliminary water conservation mandates from the State Water Resources Control Board.

The governor and the State Water Board have two problems with a water use reduction plan.

First, they don’t have the power to enforce it.

Well, kind of. The State Board can fine water agencies and cities (suppliers of water to customers) who do not meet the targets. OK. yes, they can do that. But that’s not the same thing as slapping a fine on, well, that guy hosing down the steps of the convention center.

It’s like any law. Unless you have the wherewithal to enforce it, it has no meaning. It becomes an idle threat. Like the kind my mother enunciated when we kids wouldn’t stop fighting in the back seat.

“You kids better be quiet or I’ll stop this car right now and turn back home!”

We knew she’s never going to do it.

Part of the no-consequences problem has to do with a thing called master metering.

In apartments, condo and townhome complexes, water use is tallied in one big bill. Our complex had a $3,000 bill last month, and in the complex newsletter, there was a plea to lower it.

But without knowing your own unit’s water use, there’s little incentive to change. Without sub-metering, you are not in touch with your water. Like government without voting. Or eating dinner without ever having cooked a meal.

Second, there’s equity.

Without asking agriculture to reduce water use by 25 percent or more, it gets harder for urban folks like you and me to jump into water-saving mode.

The majority of emails from readers make that very same point.

Even Rep. Grace Napolitano, D-El Monte, wanted to see agriculture make a bigger contribution to water conservation. She carried around a political cartoon published in our newspapers showing Big Ag laughing at the governor for trying to squeeze urban users while they use 80 percent of the state’s water and dig deeper wells into ancient groundwater aquifers.

“You need to put pressure on elected officials to expedite restrictions on groundwater,” she said during an interview Wednesday. “Look at the facts.”

Steve Scauzillo covers environment and transportation for the Southern California News Group. He has won two journalist of the year awards from the Angeles Chapter of the Sierra Club and is a recipient of the Aldo Leopold Award for Distinguished Editorial Writing on environmental issues. Steve studied biology/chemistry when attending East Meadow High School and Nassau College in New York (he actually loved botany!) and then majored in social ecology at UCI until switching to journalism. He also earned a master's degree in media from Cal State Fullerton. He has been an adjunct professor since 2005. Steve likes to take the train, subway and bicycle – sometimes all three – to assignments and the newsroom. He is married to Karen E. Klein, a former journalist with Los Angeles Daily News, L.A. Times, Bloomberg and the San Fernando Valley Business Journal and now vice president of content management for a bank. They have two grown sons, Andy and Matthew. They live in Pasadena. Steve recently watched all of “Star Trek” the remastered original season one on Amazon, so he has an inner nerd.